


Echo of a Past Self

by OtakuTitan1412



Series: Hollow Mind Saga [2]
Category: The Hollow (Cartoon), The Hollow (Netflix)
Genre: All OCs and really just to get a point across, Brothers! Weirdie and Adam, But not by anyone we know, Experimenting with actual world building, I know I said this was a series but it's more like a collection of loosely related oneshots, I love it to bits but I wish the show had more world building, I'm posting this before I have time to think about it, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kinda, Kinda Dark, Letter, Memory Loss, Minor Character Death, Multi, Suicide Notes, might not even be in the same universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 18:29:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14983049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtakuTitan1412/pseuds/OtakuTitan1412
Summary: Adam writes a letter to Mira and Kai upon learning of the possibility he might lose his memories.





	Echo of a Past Self

Let’s start off simple. Any video game carries risk. Old people used to say that violent video games caused behavior problems, creating more youth violence in society. This isn’t wholly correct, but the best lies all have a grain of truth to them. By playing violent video games, kids began to desensitize themselves to violence, gore, and a host of other things. I don’t know, they were never really my genre.

 

Anyways.

 

When the Hollow was released, it grew wildly popular among kids and adults alike. The revolutionary VR technology allowed a user to store everything they knew - their families, their homes, names, pets, hobbies, friends… It allowed us to loose our resistance to fear.

 

When we entered the Hollow, we were blank slates - tabula rasa - and each adventure was fresh, exciting, and gave us a rush of adrenalin. Sure, it was a long game, and pretty much had to be played in one sitting each time, but it attracted a multi-national fanbase. Disabled kids could play and regain full control of their bodies, at least until they were brought back to reality. War veterans could lose their trauma and play on gentle maps, having fun, peaceful adventures in beautiful worlds.

 

And the powers… well. The powers were addicting. To have the ability to soar in the skies, or breath underwater, or move things with your mind? People had been dreaming of those abilities for generations. To have it served to you on a platter was just… incredible. That dream… well. The Hollow became more attractive than reality.

 

At the beginning, it wasn’t really noticeable. A few more people falling from high places, a few more kids getting crushed in oncoming traffic. Higher rates of arson, higher rates of accidental death, higher rates of everything. It all just weird coincidence until the Emma Harrison case. Emma was a seven-year-old who liked to play the Hollow with her two ex-bullies cum teammates and best friends. Their story was right out of a cliché tv show, as the magic of video games and blank slates made them a closely knit group of friends. Emma generally played with her “secret power” being aquatic respiration. She’d never even gone swimming before her first game, and suddenly she could swim like a mermaid and never had to go up for air. When her mother took her to the beach for the first time, Emma enthusiastically splashed into the water, and would never have made it back up if it weren’t for the lifeguard on duty saving her from drowning. She died five days later crossing the street during a red light, believing she could outrun a speeding car. 

 

Stories like Emma Harrison began to pile up. A “pyromancer” setting himself alight. A telekinetic construction worker getting crushed trying to catch falling steel beams. Most embarrassingly, a series of accidents as parkour noobs broke bones and, occasionally, their necks trying to emulate how they could move in the game. People were having trouble differentiating the real world and the world they were spending more and more time in.

 

Lawsuits started rolling in to Argus, the company that created the game. And yet people kept playing, confident in their ability to tell real from fake.

 

And people keep dying.

 

It was about this time that we started finding… glitches. Games that would go haywire, trapping people in the system until an engineer could come hack them out. Some people would find that their memories didn’t return immediately, floundering in confusion for moments, minutes, and sometimes hours before they would finally recover. In cases where they left the chair before fully redownloading their memories, only three have made full recoveries. The other 876 reported cases have been left with partial to complete memory loss, excluding the memories of their time in the Hollow. Stranded in a foreign world, with Argus offering no support, 324 of them took their own lives.

 

Before I continue, Kai, Mira, just let me say that I have no intention of dying.

 

That said, I was caught in a glitch. I sat in my pod, confused and scared, while you two celebrated our win. I know we’ve had our fair share of disagreements in-game, while we didn’t know who we were or what we mean to each other, but most were easily fixable with out memories back. The few real issues we had in our relationship, we talked through and worked out. You know what they say, communication is the first step to a healthy relationship… I’m getting distracted.

 

In that moment, I was genuinely scared of you guys. We had just gone on an epic quest together, united in our nothingness, and there you were with all your memories, with every intention of going back in for another round. And there I was. Blank.

 

About thirty seconds after we got out, my memories finally caught back up to me.

 

When I got home from the arcade that day, I did some research. You just read what I found. In all honesty, that wasn’t quite enough to prompt this journal. The reason I wrote this, is because people who glitch once are likely to glitch again. If I get out of my chair, if I don’t remember you guys? That wouldn’t be me. I would be dead. The person in my body wouldn’t feel the same about the two of you. He won’t remember everything we’ve been through.

 

You guys deserve closure. So, I’m giving this letter to my brother. If I end up losing what makes me, me, doing what I love most with you guys, well… I guess I won’t be happy with myself. But hey, this is my choice.

 

Don’t feel bad. Maybe help Hollow Me out, show him around town, catch a movie where no dogs die at the end.

 

I love you guys.

 

\- Adam


End file.
